Gaia Intervenes
by CeredwenFlame
Summary: Rated for future Chapters. A tale about what happens when Mother Nature doesn't like the way things are going.
1. Introduction

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from Underworld, nor am I claiming to. I am merely playing with them for my own enjoyment and for the enjoyment of other fans... I am making no money off of this... so don't sue me, you won't get anything anyway... I'm a poor college student. The character Phoenix however is mine... so ask before you use her if you're inspired by my fanfic...  
  
The moon peered out from behind inky black clouds... and from some perch high above the city, two figures stood watching. Crouched there between archaic stone gargoyles they watched... one male, one female - both clothed in black and shadows. Then they were gone... one moment they were there and the next they were gone... the only sign was the sound of their coats fluttering behind them. Where they had gone so quickly was anyone's guess...  
  
They weren't the only ones watching... there were lots of moving shadows keeping their eyes and ears open for any bit of news... any information they could capture. The shadows weren't the only entities out and about... they were just the darkest ones. Somewhere down on the city streets there were many people bustling about the ancient looking city.  
  
Among them was one young woman who wouldn't stand out if she were all alone in the square. She was dressed simply if not plainly... jeans and a t-shirt with a faded, well worn leather jacket and equally well worn boots. Her hair was a curtain of faded reddish brown curls and it hung limply in her face... It wasn't exactly that she didn't care, it was more that she didn't have time to care.  
  
Things were being set into motion... forces were acting to bring these odd people together... but it was working slowly, staying subtle... so as not to alert anyone to just exactly what was going on. However, things were going to come to a head very soon. And so the pieces were slowly moving into their places. Soon time would reveal just what plan was going on involving these people from seemingly different worlds. 


	2. Selene

Selene made her way through the city slowly, methodically. She was on a mission of sorts. Ever since Markus had been awakened by lycan blood things around the city had gotten dangerous. An elder with Michael's abilities... albeit strained by the stress of time... while Michael's oddly enough were more pure. However now that Markus was awake he and Kraven were making life a living hell for those who had left the house. She was now on their hit list along with most of the lycans, but more specifically anyone and everyone loyal to Michael.  
  
Markus was sympathetic to the lycans that hadn't wanted anything to do with Michael, always looking for an angle – some way to get inside the lair of the enemy... and we were now the enemy. It seemed such a shame. The war should have abated, but it still raged on and it didn't seem like it was ever going to end. There had been however a glimmer of hope.  
  
Another reason they wanted her head on a pike was the fact that she had stolen some very ancient texts from haven... and they were not happy. She was currently in the process of translating them when she had found references to an old prophecy. She had even managed in her hurry to grab the very text, which contained said prophecy, but she still had yet to translate it. The references however, talked of a child that would be born... This child it seemed, would have traits similar to Michael's ability to be bitten by both. However to discern anymore about this child, Selene was going to have to translate the prophecy itself. Time was slipping slowly through her fingers and she was getting frustrated to no end.  
  
So tonight she hunted. It was a feeble attempt at distracting herself long enough to make the feelings of frustration go away, and it wasn't working near as well as she would have liked. Michael had caught up with her at one point in the middle of the city... and they talked for a little bit. However, she couldn't tell Michael what was bothering her... because she wasn't entirely sure herself just yet. So he had gone off hunting in the opposite direction, leaving her to her mental reverie... figuring that pushing her tonight would not be the wisest course of action.  
  
She was his sire and his mate and their odd relationship seemed to pull at them from time to time. She was a vampire and he was some lycan/vampire hybrid and his power sometimes bothered her... She worried that he would turn into another Kraven, and she didn't think she could handle that. However her undead heart beat only for him despite her worries... He showed no signs of wanting more power, only of wanting to do good with the power he'd been given... and that helped ease her worries some...  
  
However, the discovery of that prophecy added to the load already upon Selene's shoulders... and weighed her down once more. She couldn't rest easily until she had translated that damned text and figured out just what in the nine hells was going on. Who was this child? What was so important about him or her? What dangers could arise should Kraven and Markus find the child first? Did they even know about the child? How much time did she have? Was the child yet born? Was the child alive, safe, real? So many questions and no answers yet... But she would find them... somehow. 


	3. Michael

Michael was worried... Ever since the battle that had killed Viktor and Lucien, he had been worried. Worried because he was now the leader of the Lycans and worried because Kraven was now fully directing things with the Vampires and he had it in for both Selene and her pet dog as Kraven had so quaintly put it. What lies Kraven was feeding to the elder Markus, he had no idea, but the war was still on and so his worries remained.  
  
Then there was Selene... she had been so distant, almost unreachable lately, and she had been spending so many nights in the library going over the ancient texts she had taken from her old haven. Something was eating at her that she wouldn't talk to him about and he didn't know how to make her talk. Selene was difficult like that... but it was a part of her charm.  
  
He tried to tear his mind from his mate... but it wouldn't leave her. He had chosen her long before they could actually be together even though he hadn't realized it at the time. She was a vampire and he had been bitten by a Lycan, and yet instead of killing him as she should have, she saved him, freed him, helped him and at Lucien's urging turned him. So he was lycan and vampire combined now... even more loathed and feared by the vampires than he had been before this all started.  
  
They were still pissed that they hadn't gotten to him first. That Lucien had bitten him before they could sink their teeth into him. They were upset that the prophecy had been correct and a perfect chance for power had been passed over... Kraven would also never forgive him for stealing Selene's un-beating heart. Kraven had wanted Viktor's 'daughter' for his queen and Selene not only refused but went to bed with a Lycan instead.  
  
And so with a heavy heart and an overworked mind, Michael stalked the city streets, trying to ease his mind and answer the questions that were keeping his sleep nearly restless. He had intended to lurk about for a while, brooding and then return back to the lair... only he'd managed to come across Selene in the process... He had tried talking with her, but she was distant as usual... He wished that she would talk to him about what it was that was bothering her, but she wasn't talking and he had learned the hard way that he couldn't make her talk till she was ready...  
  
And so with an even heavier heart he stalked off into the night in the opposite direction of his midnight goddess... Hoping that soon things would come to a head and he'd be clued in to whatever it was that was bothering her and whatever it was that was keeping her cloistered up in the makeshift library till all hours... Something had to give and it had to give soon... or he might just give out. 


	4. Phoenix?

Classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep, classes, work, sleep and repeat again and again and again. It was the mind-numbing, weary cycle that was her young life. At 23 she should be out having fun, socializing, meeting new people and doing new things, but she wasn't... She never was. She was always cloistered up in that school or her work.  
  
Her life was so mundane and so tiring that she had even one night contemplated ending it all. She hadn't, something had stopped her. She just couldn't keep the knife to her wrist. She had felt, well she couldn't describe it... It was almost as if her mother's hand was covering her wrist and she couldn't cut down no matter how much she had wanted to at the time. But that shouldn't be right, because she had never known her mother.  
  
Her mom had died giving birth to her and her father was nowhere to be found. For all she knew the man didn't exist. She owed him nothing because he hadn't even stuck around when he'd gotten her mother pregnant. There was a bit of mystery surrounding her mother's death, she always felt as if there was something that people weren't telling her. Of course now that she was living out on her own in a tiny flat in town she didn't hear the whispers as much anymore.  
  
She tried not to think about it, but it was kind of hard not to. Every time someone called her by her name she was reminded. Phoenix. That one word did so much damage. She had survived... for some reason the people that had adopted her felt it necessary to name her that and remind her every day of her life that she survived her mother's death – that there was more to her mother dying in childbirth than what she was being told. That was the reason behind her preferring to be called Nikki, or by her middle name, Danae. She didn't even use her last name if she could help it.  
  
She didn't feel any connection to the people that raised her, and it was odd, but she didn't really feel any connection to the people that were supposedly responsible for her coming to be. There was something odd about all of it... She felt different, distanced from the rest of the world – an outsider looking in, but she could never figure out why no matter how hard she tried. The only time she felt at peace was when she was out in nature, even if that nature was the small park a few blocks away from her flat. It just helped for some reason, being in touch with the ground, the earth... that felt like home... that felt right... and it kind of scared her, because she couldn't figure out why.  
  
So she went on day in and day out, denying her life. She denied what she felt, what she thought and tried to lead as close to normal a life as she could manage. She tried blinding herself to the fact that she was failing at it miserably. She was different and always would be no matter how hard she tried to blend in. Not that she really tried to, she just didn't have time to do anything else... She made sure to keep more than busy enough to forget that she was living a lie.  
  
Always so busy with the half life that she was living that she was still wearing the same old worn leather coat that she'd had since she started college, even though her 'family' had gotten her a new one last Christmas. She simply didn't care... It was familiar, comfortable and it helped her fade into the background. That's where she wanted to be. She didn't want to be to the forefront; she didn't want to be someone who stood out in a crowd... She was too busy and too miserable to want anyone else in her life. Denying that she was miserable was so much easier when she was alone.  
  
She could have been attractive if she took any time to make it look like she cared about how she looked. However, she never did. She dressed in simple jeans and t-shirts usually with some enormous sweatshirt over top of them and hid behind her hair... Always hiding, always trying to distance herself from everyone else even though a part of her yearned to belong to something, but she would never admit it.  
  
She just kept up her routine... go to classes at the university, then do homework in the library and hurry off to work... come home and get a shower and then fall into bed. Wake up and do it all again in the morning. On weekends the routine changed slightly... Get up go to work, come home, do any homework not already finished, shower and then go to bed... It was the life of someone living in denial... of someone trying to escape something... trying to escape themselves.  
  
Someone needed to tell her that she wasn't exactly succeeding in her attempt to fool herself into thinking that everything was fine. Someone needed to tell her that there was more to life that what she was letting herself live. Someone needed to tell her that it was ok to feel different, to be different... Someone needed to tell her that it wasn't ok to hide. All right, maybe there were people telling her these things, but someone needed to make her listen... Though it didn't seem likely that anyone would succeed any time soon.  
  
Phoenix Danae was stubborn and she was dead set on forgetting as much about herself, her feelings, her past and her life as she could. And so it was that this strange young woman tried to live life on autopilot. She hurried her way through the cold city streets trying to get back to her flat before it got too late... never knowing, never realizing that there was something big happening around her... never caring that some day soon it might spill out onto her own doorstep.  
  
She kept herself blissfully ignorant. She kept herself off to the side, just a part of the scenery... She tried to make people forget that she was there... Hell she tried to make herself forget that she was there... No one could have made her believe that even the most faded flowers never go completely unnoticed... 


	5. The Prophecy

"From the depths of eternity one shall rise... from a force present since the dawn of time. Said to be of man and woman born... mother dead her daughter alive. Father paid for all his crimes... The daughter fought and lived to see years numbering 23... In her veins courses mingled blood... immune to the bite that her mother killed... fueled by something far older than either side. Not related to any blood... the earth her mother, the world her home. Like the Phoenix she will rise from the bite of both sides... to bring her to her truest state, both must be given at the same time. What results will baffle minds... and stretch the bounds of darkest times. To one side she shall hope bring, but should the other catch her despair will reign."  
  
That was all that she could decipher from the faded, ancient text. However, it seemed that it was all that she needed. Her heart jumped as she read those words over yet again. There was another person like Michael out there... but yet different. Strong enough to endure bites from both, but they would have to bite her at the same time for it to bring the prophecy to pass. She finally had enough information to go to Michael with.  
  
She had been waiting to tell him about the prophecy until she had managed to decipher it. She didn't want to get his hopes up only to find it a dead end. But now, with what was written on that brittle page, she began to feel hopeful once again. True, there were still many questions that this passage left unanswered, but she felt confident that everything they needed to know could be found in the part of the prophecy she had managed to decipher and with that idea in mind she went to her beloved.  
  
"Michael... I have finally succeeded in my research. I found a prophecy in one of the books and I do not think that my former brethren know of it... considering the books were forbidden to us... But I've found something... I've found us hope." Selene said in a semi-excited tone.  
  
"What is it? What have you found? You're not making sense Selene."  
  
"Sorry. There is another somewhat like you. According to this prophecy, there is a girl 23 years in age... Her mother killed either by a vampire or a lycan and the girl survived the bite to be born... If we can find her, and impart at the same time the bite of both lycan and vampire, it says her true state will be revealed. It also mentions that to one side she will bring hope, but if the other side finds her that despair will reign. That means we have to find her, but we have to be subtle about it... if the vampires do know of her and find her then I think this war will be over, but it will not be in the pleasant way that we hope for." She explained.  
  
"How do you know all of this? How can you be sure? I want to believe it Selene, but we have to be careful, especially now."  
  
"I know that. I was sleeping one day and something woke me up... There was this whisper in my mind like wind blowing through trees telling me to go to the library... and it led me to those books, specifically that one." Selene took an unneeded breath.  
  
"However I couldn't translate it... I tried and tried, but I couldn't find what angle they were using... then it hit me tonight and this is what I got from it. Something is helping us Michael... and I think it is the force mentioned in the prophecy. Mother Earth, Nature, Gaia... that is the only explanation I can think of... I don't even know where this is coming from Michael... It's like the answers are being handed to me now... I don't understand it yet, but I mean to... Please, just send someone out to look for the girl... She'll be around here, I know she will... But don't look for someone that stands out... You can even just start with the internet or I will... looking up women that died from strange injuries during childbirth and we can go from there... Please." She pleaded.  
  
"All right, all right love... slow down, calm down. I will help you... Why don't you start by researching the woman as you suggested... With as much time as you've spent with the prophecy I'm sure you'll be able to figure out which best fits it and then we'll go from there... just calm down... please." Michael said softly as he drew her into his arms.  
  
Selene was shaking... she felt charged with energy, damned near felt alive again... as if every nerve was awake and ready for action... but she calmed as much as she could for Michael's sake. He would help her, of course he would help her, he loved her. She was once more reminded as to the reasons why she loved him so much. There was something about him, he was so understanding – a calm, steady strength... He was her Rock in the stormy sea of life, and she was ever grateful for it.  
  
Somewhere, someone smiled... and settled in to watch things unfold. Her plan had been put into motion. She was so lucky to have found among those who wanted peace so open a mind. Selene had been easy to reach and easy to inspire. Thankfully she had also had been able to gain access to the necessary books. It hadn't been easy and it had made Selene even more of a target, but it had been necessary and worth it.  
  
The war between the vampires and the lycans wasn't just frustrating, it was damaging and the needless bloodshed had to be stopped. She would offer up her daughter to the cause... the small unassuming young woman would soon learn just why she felt so different and felt no connections to those termed by society to be her family... All of the puzzle pieces were moving together, and with a little help from a mother's hand, they would fit together quite nicely indeed. 


	6. The Dream

After a long night of searching on the internet, Selene had a few leads, but she wasn't sure which one to follow... She looked down on the city below from her rooftop perch, pondering just what to do. She closed her eyes and let the cool night wind blow over her. It was then that she thought she heard a voice. There was a voice on the wind whispering a name... a familiar name... one of the four that she'd found last night.  
  
"I don't know who is doing this or how... but thank you." Selene whispered to the wind. She made her way back to the lair. She didn't know who or what had given her the inspiration, she wasn't sure if she was going insane or not... but she didn't care... If it led them to the girl, she was all for it. She was happier than she'd been in a while when she came back to the lair. So much so, that even the lycans that didn't see her often knew something was up... Michael was just glad to have her back safe.  
  
"You're awfully happy tonight." Michael said softly, smiling as he embraced his love.  
  
"I know... I found her I think... It is as if some force is guiding me to her. I have the name Michael, and for some reason I just know that it is the right one." Selene explained happily.  
  
"I'm glad. When do you want to start looking for her?" he asked.  
  
"As soon as we can. Should we go ourselves or send someone else to get her?"  
  
"I'm not sure dear, this has been your project so it is up to you."  
  
"Alright, we'll go tomorrow night then." Selene said with a smile.  
  
"Then tomorrow night it is." Michael said with a smile. He wasn't entirely sure about all of this, but he wasn't going to question it either. He too was beginning to feel like something important was about to happen because of this. His dreams were filled with odd things... he wanted to believe they were messages like the ones Selene had been receiving, but they weren't clear enough to say for sure.  
  
Elsewhere...  
  
A young woman lay asleep in her bed... tossing and turning, brow dripping with an almost feverish sweat. However, she was not sick. No, it was more like she was in a trance. Something was communicating with her, and her body was not handling it quite as well as the entity trying to reach the girl would have liked, but it could not be helped... she had to be prepared.  
  
"Danae.... Danae... listen my child..." A soft, musical voice spoke. Inside her dreamy trance state, the girl awoke.  
  
"Who... who are you? Where are you?" The confused young woman asked looking all around her. She was in the woods somewhere... It wasn't familiar to her, but it felt comforting somehow... It felt oddly like home to her. She didn't understand why, but she somehow felt that soon she'd be let in on the understanding she sought.  
  
"My daughter... I come to you to prepare you. Soon things will be set into motion and you're true nature will be revealed. You were not truly of man and woman born... You are my true daughter. You can call me Gaia if you like." Said a soft, kindly voice as a woman appeared clothed in the bounties of nature.  
  
"You... you're kidding... right?" The now really confused young woman asked.  
  
"No my child, I am not. You have survived the attack upon the woman who carried you inside her as I could not do... you will survive much more before this is all over. There is a war going on around you that most humans do not even realize. Things that you thought were only stories are in fact real. Vampires and werewolves are real and they are battling within this very city. You were created to help bring things back to the way they should be. I know this is a lot to take in, but soon a woman named Selene will be coming to you and you must be ready child. You must go with her... She and her mate will protect you... from the others." Gaia explained.  
  
"Why do I need protected?"  
  
"Because there are those that once they find out about your existence they will either try to kill you or corrupt you and that cannot be allowed to happen. But do not worry... Selene will be here for you tomorrow night. She is a vampire, but one you can trust... She wants this war to end as much as I do... Hence why she was chosen to find you."  
  
"I still don't understand." The young woman said her voice getting a little panicked.  
  
"I know... and I'm sorry for that. I would have told you sooner, but it could not be risked. There is a prophecy... and you are the focus of it... You are not truly human and once things are set into motion, you will no longer be mortal either. You must not be afraid... Though Selene and her lycan mate will have to impart their bites to you at the same time in order for you to become as you were truly meant to be... do not be afraid, they will not hurt you... You will survive as you have always done my phoenix... but you must endure this... or this city and the people in it will perish... and then there will be no telling where the bloodshed will go next... Forgive me daughter..." Gaia sighed as she embraced the shaking young woman... Tears fell down the girl's cheeks... she was overwhelmed and desperately frightened.  
  
"Why me?" the young woman continued to weakly sob as she let Gaia embrace her.  
  
"It could be no other way... but fear not, I will be with you always... daughter." Gaia said as the dream faded into the blaring of an alarm clock.  
  
The young woman instinctively hit the snooze button on the alarm clock, her body still shaking and covered with sweat... She was still overwhelmed by what had gone on as she slept that night. She would not be going to school or work today... Her body was just too drained... She was just too drained... She needed time to think about and process just what her strange dream had meant. It wasn't until several hours later that the young woman finally awoke. 


	7. The Hunt Began

The hunt began. The two outcasts were on the move... what they were looking for was currently unclear, but surely important if their sources were correct. What to do – follow them and try to interfere? Or try and figure things out on their own... Neither option seemed that realistic at the moment. The outcasts knew where they were going and what they were looking for... He however, had nothing. Perhaps it would be better to observe... to wait and see what was so important and then decide a course of action from there. Yes, that sounded much better, much better indeed.  
  
The young woman woke only mere hours before dusk would fall... She was disappointed in herself for sleeping so late. So much of the day had been wasted, and work would more than likely not be happy with her for not calling in. However, who could really blame her after the night she'd had. There was something coming, the air held this pregnant feeling as if something important were about to be born out of the mystery that was keeping her feeling tense and unsure.  
  
Who had been talking to her last night? Why had this woman called her daughter? Had that been the voice of the mother that she had never gotten to know? Was that the woman that had died giving birth to her? It couldn't have been... there was just something about the words she spoke that lent themselves to a certain air of mystery that no mortal woman could have created... There was something at once familiar and strange about that voice. She had also felt strangely comforted and at the same time very afraid as if it were something far larger, far greater than herself that she had been in the presence of that night....  
  
So many questions and so few answers... Something was coming for her... the voice in her dreams had told her that much... So much was odd about what the kindly voice had spoken to her, but at the same time she was hard pressed to deny the validity of even the oddest of the statements made in her dreams last night... So what exactly was going on? She had mentioned some sort of war between vampires and werewolves – hadn't she? As unbelievable as it sounded, somehow it felt right. It was so odd. Then again hadn't that kindly woman called herself Gaia, as in Mother Nature?  
  
Danae just shook her head and proceeded to make herself something to eat... Once she was done, she cleaned up as much as she could... Something told her to get things ready, that she would be leaving and she might not have a chance to come back for a while... Where were these things coming from? Why was she compelled to follow these odd inklings? She supposed that it didn't matter, after all, if it was right then she was ready and if it was wrong, then she could always put things in their place...  
  
Darkness fell...  
  
Selene and Michael slowly slipped out into the night... First they would feed and then they would go to the girl... They were as shadows, keeping themselves out of the lights and out of the focus of anyone that might be watching. They would have to operate under more subtle and secretive ways in order to make sure that the girl was not put into more danger than was necessary. After all if Kraven caught wind of this, then he would surely have his minions knocking down the door to try and get her for himself.  
  
They were being watched and not by only one source. The guide was watching, as she always would, but there was someone darker and more dangerous watching. Sensing this, the guide sought to keep him as baffled as possible and sent out into the night a fog, deep and dark as well as letting him pick her up on his radar, so as to believe that she was what the two were searching for... The guide would lead him on a merry chase through the city as far away from her daughter as she could manage... and then she would let her presence ebb away so as to leave him baffled and behind. Certain steps must be taken and sacrifices made in order to ensure the safety of her little phoenix.  
  
"This way Michael."  
  
"How do you know where we are going?"  
  
"I pulled up a map last night and committed it to memory, besides her address seems burned into my mind... and we have walked this city many nights... I do know a thing or two about the names of streets, though I seldom pay them mind." Selene chuckled. Michael just shook his head and chuckled, following his love on the path to this treasure she was seeking...  
  
Danae grew tense, she was waiting for something and it was almost like she could feel what was going on. She knew something was on its way. She only hoped it was the woman, Selene and her mate and not something else coming to find her. She set everything she wanted to take with her in the living room... A suitcase... and a bag filled with her stuffed animals and a few personal effects she thought that she might need... other than that there was nothing... nothing else here in the apartment held anything of great importance to her.  
  
She felt very little connection to any of these material things. The only time she felt any sort of real connection was when she was out in the park, surrounded by nature. That felt natural, that felt right, that felt like home... The rest of this was just an illusion she'd been forced into by the circumstances in her life that had led her here. Other than that, this materialistic world meant absolutely nothing to her.  
  
It was all really strange. She couldn't claim she understood any of it and she wouldn't want to try anyway. It would more than likely only serve to give her a headache... and she didn't think she could afford such at this time. Something told her that she needed to be ready for just about anything and that she needed to keep her mind as clear as possible. Something important was about to happen and her clarity of mind was something of importance for it. She might not understand what was going on, but she knew that she had to be prepared for whatever was coming her way...  
  
The pair drew nearer to their goal... time seemed to be slowing around them, getting to the girl seemed to be taking an eternity. However they couldn't help but feel like something was on their side in this game. A strange fog had rolled in and while it was thick as frozen pea soup, it seemed to move for them, as though it were guiding them to their destination. Selene was growing more and more restless the closer they got. She was on the verge of bursting with the excitement she was feeling... And that was saying something as she rarely showed such things or felt things so deeply as this... but the puzzle pieces were falling into place and she was happy about it... very happy about it indeed.  
  
The power he sensed was something unlike anything he had ever felt before. It called to him like a siren's song. That had to be what the pair was looking for. He darted off down a foggy alleyway and made to follow and find the source of that power. If he could find the source of that power... shape it and mold it and wield it for his own, he could surely bring those insipid outcasts to their knees... And bring Selene to bow before him, force her to submit to his will and reign the night beside him as his queen... He pressed onward at a pace that would baffle even most vampires... he had to have that power. The true source of that power smirked as the bait was taken.  
  
She sat there watching t.v. it was a mindless and rather pointless thing to do... She couldn't really even focus on it. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out whether or not the dream she'd had the night before was actually real. Something inside of her told her that it was, but she couldn't be one hundred percent sure. Was this follish? Was she being set up? Was she going insane? She was beginning to wonder. It was possible that her mind was working over time and with the stress level at work she could be suffering some sort of break down. But why then would she feel so... deeply about this?  
  
She was lost in thought as the knock on her door came... and it was only as that knocking turned to pounding that she was startled out of her mental reverie. She looked at the door as if not believing someone was knocking... and an eternity could have passed in the time it took her to realize it was real and the time she called out into the mystery.  
  
"Who's there?" She called out, her voice nervous, anxious and unsure...  
  
"Selene." Came a strong, feminine voice. The girl looked up, startled... that one word, that name spoke volumes to her... confirming her dreams were not just dreams. She got up and made her way to the door... Keeping the chain lock in place she opened the door, a little startled at the figures that stood there before her. Both were clad in black, but there was something about them that was unlike anything she'd ever seen before... a sense about them... and the fact that she noticed that sort of disturbed her.  
  
"You..." She paused and shook her head... closing the door and undoing the chain lock. "Come in..." She said softly. She was confused, stunned. That comforting voice inside her head, that warm sense was present again as if confirming to her just who was before her. She stepped aside and let them into her apartment, closing and locking the door behind them.  
  
"You are Danae – correct?" Michael inquired.  
  
"Yes. Gaia sent you..." Danae said softly...  
  
"Yes, she did. You are going to have to come with us..." Selene started but was interrupted by the girl.  
  
"I know. I dreamt about this happening last night. I have my things ready. Just a suitcase and a small bag... the rest can stay here... I've little attachment to any of it." She explained quietly. She was very quiet and reserved she had resigned herself to her fate the moment she'd seen dream become fact...  
  
"You are sure about this?" Selene asked, taken aback by the young woman's behavior.  
  
"If I am needed, I must go. I feel... I've been... instructed. I wish to figure out what this is all about, and I think the only way to do that is for me to go with you. Regardless of my fears and such, I must do what I must do..." She said softly, gathering up her backpack and her purse... turning off lights and whatnot... then picking up the awkward suitcase. Michael took the case from her.  
  
"Follow us then... carefully and quietly... but try to act naturally. I am not sure if our guide shall keep us under her protection and cover much longer. I have a feeling she is the reason we have gotten here without anyone noticing..." Selene said as she turned to leave. Danae just nodded and followed obediently... pausing to lock up her apartment... She looked at that wooden door for a moment and then turned to follow. She was not completely comfortable with what she was having to do... but she would do what was required... it was how she had always been. 


End file.
